Death To The Squats - The Luna Wolves 117th Company

[DerSchlankeMann]

"Shall we expect some military giant to step the galaxy and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of the greenskin, the eldar and all other xenos combined, with all the treasure of the galaxy in their military chest, with a Horus for a commander, could not by force make a track on Terra in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer: if it ever reaches us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As an empire of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."

- the remembrancer Serkonis, paraphrasing the Nord Merican statesman Abraim Linkon before the council of Lyceum, M30.

 

"The Luna Wolves 117th Company was detached from the legion early in the crusade in order to aid the 93rd Brabant Rifles with compliance operations on Eighty-Eight Thirty-Three (later known as Othello's Folly). After the planet was rendered compliant, the 117th was seconded to the 88th Expeditionary Fleet for the remainder of the crusade. As the 117th found itself operating close to the galactic core and the Squat homeworlds at the beginning of its operations, many of its marines are armored in MkII and MkIII power armor. Its operations also meant that the 117th was on the other side of the galaxy when the events of Istvaan III unfolded."

- A History of the Great Crusade, Part I.

 

 

The afterburners of descending drop pods lit the sky as the Luna Wolves 117th Company made planetfall on Eighty-Eight Thirty-Three. Anti-aircraft fire chased after them, touching none. With a deafening thump, the pod containing Captain Petrus and his command landed. Petrus and his squad disembarked as the pod's doors blew open. The captain raised his power sword as his squad fell in behind him. "117th, to me! For the Emperor and the Warmaster! Charge!" A cheer went up from behind him and Petrus smiled. With a sweep of his sword, he strode forward, urging his men into the fray.

 

They'd landed in the middle of the Squat lines. Somewhere to their west, the 93rd Brabant fought to hold the line against the enemy's techno-sorceries. The 93rd had fought hard, grinding the Squats to an unbreakable deadlock for a year. Now they were here. The 93rd was the hammer. They were the scalpel poised to cut the enemy's throat. 

 

***

 

Autogun fire boomed about them as the Marines of the 117th scythed through the Squat lines. Here, Brother Idon of Berberis put two rounds through a Squat's chest, blasting him backward into the packed dirt. There, Brother Somides of Miras decapitated one with his combat knife before blowing another's head off. Everywhere, Squats died. Foot by foot, Petrus and his squads gained ground. The guns of the Devastators boomed, missiles, lascannon shots and melta blasts targeting enemy armor and reducing to so much molten slag. 

 

Another pod slammed down five meters to Petrus's left. Out stepped Honored Brother Eskarus, his twin autocannons firing in tandem. "Brother Eskarus," the captain called, a smile lighting his face. "You deign to join us? On this, so lowly an undertaking?" The dreadnaught chuckled, the noise washed flat by its internal vox. "I go where I wilt, captain. And today I go to kill Squats. See if you can keep up." With that, the dreadnaught moved to engage the enemy.

 

Petrus paused to watch the man-machine make war. Everywhere the dreadnought turned, Squats died in hails of autocannon rounds, torn apart by shells the size of Petrus's head. The pause nearly cost Petrus his life as one of the enemy swung a mace, crackling with blue energy, toward his head. Petrus blocked with his sword and shoved the Squat leader away, putting all his brawn into it. The Squat disengaged as it stumbled and Petrus didn't waste the opportunity, putting a bolt round through its head before it could charge him again. He signaled his squad and they cut through to him, circling around him and becoming nothing so much as a death incarnate for any unlucky enough to cross blades with them. Each member of his squad was a veteran of a hundred campaigns and after today they would be veterans of one more. On into eternity. 

 

Or so Petrus thought.

[Aqui]

As it appears to be a story rather than a DIY project, I'm moving this to the fan Fiction section.

[deathspectersgt7]

A good read.